Toppenish School Administrators to Carry Guns in Fall

Toppenish School district is taking steps to try and make their schools safer by allowing administrators to carry guns if they have gone through proper training. After another recent school shooting that hit close to home last week in Seattle, gun violence that effects our schools is a top priority for Toppenish administration.

“The whole gist behind what we are doing is that our children and our staff are safe”

administrators that are properly trained could be the difference of many lives if a violent scenario is to happen at one of the Toppenish Schools.

“Once the policy was passed then we had to go through that training process to make sure”

Cerna also wanted to stress this is something that you have to be fully capable of performing the tasks at hand if a situation arose

“It’s something if you’re going to volunteer for, you… you’ve gotta be ready to do it, if not don’t do it.”

Proper training for administrators to carry guns on campus could be the quickest way to defend a potential attack, but one man that I talked to said that first form of defense could turn into a first form of offense if somebody figured out which one of the administrators is carrying firearms

“Why go outside when it’s inside the school? Inside the office, room, wherever it’s at and then get the gun itself from the person that’s not expecting something to come up. Especially if you have two or three more having a plan and they subdue the person from their gun, and you have a safety issue there,” said Alexander Mejia

Still others think this could be the safest route to insuring defense for students

“If a company or a store or a school wants to make a rule about it then so be it,” said Robert Walton

“Our children are our most precious commodity and we have to make sure they are safe, and our staff as well,” said Cerna

So far eleven administrators have gone through the training to carry a weapon and Cerna will provide bullet proof vests for the administrators for if a shooting happened. The administrators will begin carrying firearms in the fall.